Hey everyone, can you please help me what to do- I don’t have and don’t use anything from Google. Now for school I am asked to provide Gmail. Is there way out ? What else, maybe some other email provider is compatible with school emailing system, because now teacher must use her personal email to email me and she is not happy at all…
I thought there was no way to make a Google account without a phone number, but as recently as December 2025 I know of at least 1 workaround: when I created the account while logging in for the first time on a factory-reset old Chromebook, it bypassed phone verification. It might be worth trying this, if you can borrow a Chromebook (and ideally reset it, so it’s unused or a display model)
Bruh that’s crazy that the school doesn’t give you an email for comms
Edit: and what kind of mailing system can only send emails to @gmail.com, that’s additionally stupid
I would consider the cost benefit analysis between retaining a modicum of privacy with your school assignments/work and being unable to participate in modern society
Just make one dedicated for academic use, you don’t have to dedicate your life to google
Doesn’t Google require a phone number for account creation now?
yeah, so they can track people’s activities/identity/location
AFAIK Proton permits to redirect mails from Gmail and others to Proton Mail.
Someone else said
nobody should be expected to drop their principles on a whim.
But this is exactly what school is about, training you that you’re nothing but a cog in the machine, teaching you to accept getting beaten down over nothing just because someone higher up the chain from you made a decision and why would he ever consult you in that decision you’re just a lowly student/worker.
You went to a shit school then. Mine taught critical thinking, problem solving and working as a group to achieve a common goal. It also highly encouraged independent extracurricular activities with all sorts of clubs/teams that got school funding to finance their work. If you wanted it to be, you had a giant playground for academically inclined people experimenting and wanting to learn.
There’s a seminal essay called “Student as Ni__er” which will probably illuminate the other person’s point a little clearer.
you are either not american or homeschooled or got a lucky tech school in the 90’s.
Ask your teacher to check with the IT department why there’s such a restriction in the first place. Maybe they just falsely assume that Gmail == email? If they actually can’t use any other provider, both you and your teacher should confront the IT department or whoever made that decision.
It’s probably for auth. Make all the kids get a Gmail and then use it as your identity provider. Way cheaper and easier than running your own IDP.
You can use google services without a google mail.
Op says their teacher must email them. So i think it’s email
This is not as simple as you make it out to be.
Teachers are not IT experts, nor are they privacy aware in many cases. School IT people are at best tech-savvy teachers who know where the esc key is. So entering a discussion with them will end up in a monologue from their end explaining their hands are tied. Schools (or groups of schools) make decisions on what infrastructure to use, and they hardly stray from that, just like companies do.
Best bet is to setup a burner account which you solely use on school assignments. Set up your browser (or dedicate a separate browser to school) to use different profile directories (!!) so you don’t mix private with school.
Maybe the teacher’s just using the software wrong? The “restriction” might as well be a user error. That’s worth considering before giving up and making a Google account, don’t you think?
Can you direct your teacher to take up her concerns with the school’s IT department? Sounds like you have an established workaround by having the teacher email you from her personal account. In my view, the school is at fault here. That said I understand the inconvenience for everyone involved of the added friction of avoiding the modern surveilance state.
Just make a Gmail account and set it up to forward to your real one. Only things that live in it will be the stuff for this class, and only temporarily.
What do you actually lose privacy wise from that? They get to know you’re in the class you’re in and see a very small subset of your communications related to it.
Ultimately, you’re the only one who can decide how much extra friction you’re willing to put up with for your principles, but in my experience it’s better to just make whatever bare minimum skeleton account you can to meet the needs and get on with life. Would you rather spend time fighting to make your special case setup work while giving the teacher reasons to evaluate your work more harshly, or learning the material?
Plus, there are benefits to blending in.
Just make a Gmail account and set it up to forward to your real one.
I think this is a bad idea because now google knows your identity and knows the identity of your real email. So the NSA knows too. Forever. You basically “infect” or out your anonymous email that way.
I think having an “official” smartphone with your personal information for shit like this and never letting it interact with your anonymous ids either way is the only proper way. Not even email either account. You’d need some easy way to swap files that can’t be monitored from the outside. And a VPN so the IPs never overlap. And then they probably still can associate both ids.
Imo, if your risk model has to account for nation state actors, you’re not the type of person who needs to ask about this stuff or you’re already screwed.
There are plenty of different options for throwaway emails and defense in depth on that if you don’t want the link to be direct, but the idea is ultimately the same: make what you need to get by, insulate between your real and it to taste.
Yeah true. I think for most it’s just this disgusting feeling of being tracked and spied on, not a real worry or threat.
The blame isn’t on you tbf nobody should be expected to drop their principles on a whim. Being compatible only with gmail is so bad… I hope you can work it out but it’s more a thing for school faculty to change.
Worst case scenario you make a burner acc. Are you sure there’s no “login/connect with another provider” type link?
until this day, you can register your own email for youtube. it might work as a google login later on.
Google Classroom is generally managed by the School’s IT. Your setup is strange if they request public gmail account and not internal account in the school tenant.
- Your teacher is correct in not being happy. Giving their personal email to a student is… problematic
- Remember that your privacy is already breached when a 3rd party in the communication is using gmail
- Simply create a burner gmail account and do not use that for anything else than inside your school’s google ecosystem
Or any teacher should be perfectly capable of setting up a throwaway account for teaching work, just like some are recommending the student do. Every piece of friction with data fascists is a positive gain for everyone else. It’s the people opting for low friction who are greasimg the rails for fascists of all stripes.
I found this article. I will try to create Gmail account in library, because through my Tor browser with VPN is asking phone nr. https://itsourcecode.com/blogs/how-to-create-a-gmail-account-without-a-phone-number/
You could use SMSPool.
Why does your school not have their own in house email for students?
Perhaps you could direct your teacher to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gmail#Criticism. This is just laziness and stupidity on the part of the school, IMNSHO.
EDIT: Although, to be fair, the school is probably getting this from Google for free—that’s how they getcha.
Teacher likely doesn’t have the power to change the system and is just another user, so you’d just be tilting at a windmill. At best, preaching to the choir.
It would be like me telling you why I don’t like Gmail since you don’t seem to like it, either.
Participants, what is I use Googlemail@proton.me ? Hahahahahha I was trying to find a solution which looks like Gmail to pass them😅 anyway, I will be talking with teacher in next days and I will ask about why they need my Gmail only. And I will say that I don’t even have one. Maybe it will be enough to tell that all necessary info I will get during physical meetings and there is no reason to email me.
Thanks, I hate it 🤣
Isn’t Proton owned by massive zionists?
Any suggestions for email provider?
While funny, your teacher and school aren’t going to give you kudos for being a smartass.
I know… trying to find a way that everyone would be happy…
